


Little café at Lake Avalon

by bunnysworld



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Arthur Pendragon Returns, Immortal Merlin, M/M, Waiting for Arthur Pendragon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-23
Updated: 2015-06-23
Packaged: 2018-04-05 18:49:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 529
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4191003
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bunnysworld/pseuds/bunnysworld
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Each day, Merlin comes in, sits by the window and waits. Elena and Gwen get used to is as they serve him his tea.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Little café at Lake Avalon

**Author's Note:**

> Written for merlin_writers Trope Bingo, the square is 'coffee shop' (I hope I didn't wander too far off the topic)
> 
> Not beta'd, sorry.

„Who’s he?“ Elena looked at the scruffy looking bloke who sat at the window table and looked out to the little island with the strange tower that was much further away than it looked. She only had moved into the area but she had heard rumours of the island being in a different world and that no living soul had ever reached the tower. 

Gwen smiled sadly. “That’s Merlin. He comes here every day, orders a tea and sits here for hours as if he’s waiting for someone.”

“And?”

“Nobody ever shows up.”

Elena threw Gwen a look. “That’s sad.”

“Yes, it is.” Gwen nodded. “Some days, when he looks especially lost, I just give him his tea for free.”

“Do we know who he’s waiting for?”

Shaking her head, Gwen reached for a bag of tea. “He never said and I’m not going to ask.”

The man jumped up and looked intensely to the shore but then sank down into his chair again and the girls watched him pull an old tattered notebook out of the pocket of his worn parka. With a short pencil, he noted something down before he leafed through the notebook, stopping at one page, smiling sadly, before he stuffed everything back into his pocket. 

The weeks passed and Elena got used to the strange man, who seemed to be young and old at once and who appeared as if his life was stopped by a red light and him just waiting for it to turn green again. 

Spring turned into summer and summer into fall and each day, Merlin came in, sat down, watched and waited. 

“It’s particularly nasty out today, isn’t it, Merlin?” Elena served him his tea and didn’t expect an answer since Merlin never could be engaged in chatting. 

The wind had picked up and the rain came down so hard that the little island with the tower across the lake shouldn’t have been visible at all, but it was clearly there and it seemed to have moved closer. The place was empty but for Merlin and Elena suspected that nobody else would find their way out here in this weather. 

To her surprise, she heard the little bell at the door chime and turned to see a man stumbling in. He was totally soaked, his wet old-fashioned clothes clinging to him, water running down his face. Before Elena could greet him and offer a towel or a blanket, the man croaked out one word. “Merlin?”

But Merlin had jumped up already, knocking his tea over in the process, wrapped his arms around the newcomer and held on for dear life. They stood there like this for a while and then left together.

Gwen, who had come out of the kitchen when she heard the bell, smiled.

“Who was he?” Elena wiped her hand on a kitchen towel.

“I don’t know, Elena, but it looks as if Merlin found what he was looking for.” Gwen smiled.

After that day, neither Gwen nor Elena ever saw the two men again and you had to look very hard to see the silhouette of the tower on the little island in the lake.


End file.
